Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Another Brick In The Wall

A story that seems to have disappeared from the news is the Trump-Russia connection.  There is the possible Michael Flynn testimony to Congress, but aside from that, the story has moved very far to the back burner.

But it's not dead.

Here is something being reported out of Boston.  Back in 2014, a golf writer queried the Trumps about where they were getting money to build golf courses.  No American banks would loan to Trump - only Deutschebank would among major banks - and no one was making loans for golf courses in the post-2008 financial landscape.

Where did they get their money?  Russia.  They are pretty up front about it in the article, as they have been in other places before Donald started running for president.  In case you were wondering what was in those tax returns, one thing you would likely see is that Trump was leveraged up to his ass to Russian oligarchs.

Of course, none of this proves a quid pro quo, though you could understand why Trump would be opposed to the sanctions Obama put in place shortly after this interview was given.  And you could understand why Trump has been reflexively pro-Russian and pro-Putin.  You can also understand why the Russians would want to do what they could to get Trump in the White House.

The question ultimately is whether there is a smoking gun out there to tie all the threads of this story together.

No comments: